A record crowd of 5,000 plus people attended the first day of the Independence Day Rock Show on 15 August 2003. B4U Music covered the entire event and will be airing special capsules in the near future. Other news channels such as NDTV had also sent their crews to cover the annual event that coincides with the St Xavier's College annual fest Malhar - held next door at the college premises adjacent to Rang Bhavan.

Power Productions CEO Farhad Wadia, who has been involved with the I-Rock event since the beginning, says that the promotions conducted by B4U Music and Midday's Go 92.5 FM played in an important role in the "never witnessed before" turnout.

Wadia has also roped in advertisers such as Shaw Wallace, Pepsi, Pepe jeans in addition to rock music magazine RSJ (Rock Street Journal). "In fact, Shaw Wallace is using I-Rock XVIII as the launch platform for its new vodka mix drink (the drink is similar to Bacardi Shots) Veba. Several Indian rock bands participated in the Veba I-Rock contest," adds Wadia who urged the assembled youth to go out and grab their Veba bottles.

Incidentally, Mumbai-based band Sceptre won top honours at the Veba I-Rock contest held on 15 August. The other bands that performed as part of the contest included names such as Stigmata, Sledge Hammer, Kryptos and Bhoomi.

Pepe did a product placement using another rock band Brahmaa whose band members wore Pepe jeans while performing on stage. The band members also used the I-Rock platform to relaunch their second album.

A giant screen flashed ads of the sponsors at regular intervals - Pepsi's Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan-Fardeen Khan - Kareena Kapoor-Preity Zinta's Pepsi ke liye hum besharam hain series of ads; Pepe's international "Next Generation" ad, Veba's "virtual reality" series and B4U Music's "Jimi Hendrix" promos.

One hopes that the popularity of the event will inspire channels such as MTV and Channel [V] to extend more support to the Indian rock bands.